White Hat Hackers in the Legal Field and Equipment Evaluation System – Business News Highlights Jul 18

World

• The French and Greek visa centers have run out of places to apply for Schengen visas for July.

Russia

• The Ministry of Digital Development is considering the possibility of introducing the concept of bug bounty in the legal field. This will legalize the program of payments to so-called white hackers.
• The authorities will introduce an evaluation system to recognize equipment as domestic. Market participants believe that the process was started in order to prevent the spread of a set of screwdrivers from Chinese equipment in the Russian Federation.

Finance

• The banks began to refinance the mortgage issued in the spring. Demand remains subdued, but growth is expected by the end of the year.
• The Central Bank plans to force banks to register new clients using identification through a unique biometric system (UBS) in their applications. For those who do not carry out such a review, the regulator will prohibit in the applications issuing loans and opening deposits to citizens.

Business

• Russian bloggers lost up to 90% of their income, among the reasons were the blocking of social networks, disabling monetization on YouTube and the departure of foreign advertisers.
• The termination of activities in Russia of large foreign brands collapsed the Russian beauty market in April-June by 14%, Forbes has learned.
• The promotional share of retailers' grocery and fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) sales in monetary terms, which has fallen sharply since the start of the current crisis, has rebounded.

Services

• Sberentertainment is preparing to launch two new social networks: a TikTok analog with vertical videos called Chipz and Punch for creating and promoting music.

Transportation

• The Ministry of Transport and the Federal Air Transport Agency are preparing measures to support airports for 10 billion rubles. They can be reimbursed for major business expenses and helped with loans.